


where my heart can go a-journeying

by shinealightonme



Category: Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Everybody Lives, F/F, Fluff, Gift Giving, Rare Pairings, Religion, implied Garak/Bashir
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-31
Updated: 2017-12-31
Packaged: 2019-02-25 21:29:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 5,214
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13221624
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shinealightonme/pseuds/shinealightonme
Summary: "When you have good people, you celebrate them."





	1. Days of Atonement

**Author's Note:**

  * For [cancennau](https://archiveofourown.org/users/cancennau/gifts).



> Star Trek Secret Santa gift for cancennau, who wanted Ezri/Ziyal in a festival, possibly giving gifts. I hope this delivers!
> 
> I have made use of Memory Alpha, but my knowledge of Star Trek apocrypha is limited, so if anything I've made up here about Bajoran religion, etc. is totally off base I'm going to chalk it up to "alternate universe".
> 
> This is set sort of nebulously during/post season 7. I've tried to keep it internally consistent, but I'm not tracking stardates, so if anything doesn't add up...you know..."alternate universe."

Ziyal starts with the people in her life that she knows will be observing the rites themselves -- Nerys, the Emissary, Constable Odo (if only because Nerys and all of his Bajoran deputies are doing it, too). They require no explanation. They know what the trinkets mean as soon as she hands them over. They have offerings of their own to give her. She suspects at first that the Emissary simply carries a stash of them to give to anyone who gives him one, but the look in his eyes as he recites the traditional appeal for forgiveness is sincere. Perhaps she has wronged him by making assumptions; she vows to do better.

That is, after all, what the Days of Atonement are for.

She proceeds on to her non-Bajoran friends, who are larger in number. Even after months living on the station, many of the Bajorans are still wary of her. She stays vigilant against any bitterness in her heart about that fact.

Jake takes his trinket with a complicated smile, and she adds, after the usual recitation of atonement, "and I apologize for making you take part in a Bajoran religious tradition," which gets a laugh out of him.

"Hey, at least I get a Tora Ziyal original." He flicks the disk up into the air with his thumb and catches it, like she's seen him and Nog do with poker chips in Vic's casino. The trinkets she made this year are not much bigger than a poker chip, replicated wood and wholly unremarkable save that she had carved simple patterns on each of them. Jake's has the script of an old Earth alphabet known as Greek running around its circumference.

Gifts given during the Days of Atonement are meant to be small and cheap. Which is just as well, since most Bajorans couldn't afford anything else during the Occupation. And in the Breen labor camp there had been nothing to afford: the prisoners had swapped small rocks and bits of scrap cloth and reminders that at least they were alive to atone at all.

Garak's chip is finely carved to match the pattern of one of his favorite imported silk cloths. Ziyal doesn't elaborate beyond the basic words of the rite, "I offer this to you as an expression of my sorrow that I have wronged you and my intention to do better." She can't bring herself to say, _I am sorry I thought I was in love with you_ , but then, figuring out what people mean when they say something else _is_ a specialty of his.

"Ah, Bajoran sentimentality." Garak shakes his head, exactly as she had expected. "I must say, I far prefer the Gratitude Festival to the Days of Atonement. All this bowing and scraping. Really, my dear, what do you possibly have to apologize for?"

"We all wrong the people around us, Garak," she says. "And some of us would like to do better."

"If you start from the premise that everyone always wrongs others, than what is the point of trying to improve? No, don't," he interrupts her, holding up a hand. "I can't stand to argue ethics with you, your earnestness is quite off-putting."

She stands up straight, because she is earnest and sentimental and she isn't ashamed of any of it. "Some people," she says, "would feel the need to apologize for a comment like that."

"Then I suppose it's handy that I just happen to have this." Garak reaches behind the counter of his shop and pulls out a tiny rag doll, half the length of Ziyal's index finger. "I trust you'll forgive me if I skip the bowing and the scraping?"

"Oh, Garak, of course." Ziyal takes the doll and stands on her toes to kiss Garak on the cheek. She wonders if maybe he isn't trying to say _sorry I played along with the idea you were in love with me to piss off your father and hide my own loneliness_. It's a special kind of friendship that grows on such a foundation. She's long over her infatuation with him, but she still enjoys his presence; for one thing, he's the only person on the station who doesn't read as _too cold_ when she touches him. "See, you're improving already. Will I see you at services?"

Garak shudders. "No, my dear, I think that is entirely too much. Now, if you'll excuse me..." and he hurries off to help dissuade a customer from trying on a truly ill-suited gown.

Once she's through her non-Bajoran friends, that leaves the most difficult group of people: the ones that she's wronged that she doesn't know well. Here are hostile faces, and confused ones, silence and frowns and one Starfleet officer who refuses to take her offering, walks off and leaves it on the table in front of him. Quark hurries over to clear the table, to babble reassurance at her, and Ziyal breathes until she's able to summon a smile for him.

"No, thank you, you don't need to clear that. I'll take it with me." She leaves the disk as an offering in the temple.

It's been a long day by the time she reaches the end of her list, and she's regretting how she ordered her task. Next year she is going to start with the hardest apologies first, and leave herself Nerys and Jake and Garak to look forward to at the end of it.

She decides this very firmly and chimes the door to Ezri Dax's quarters.

Lieutenant Dax looks utterly surprised to see her, but it's a pleasant kind of surprise, without even a hint of irritation or expectation on her face.

"Oh. Ziyal. It's Ziyal, right? Of course it's Ziyal," Lieutenant Dax answers her own question, before Ziyal can speak. "Hello?"

"Hello, Lieutenant Dax." Ziyal doesn't smile, because her errand is a solemn one, but she tries to look cordial. "I'm sorry for the late hour."

Lieutenant Dax waves a hand. "Please, don't worry about it, my sleep patterns are." She makes a face. "Not great. Can I help you with something?"

Ziyal breathes deeply and holds out her last offering. "I offer this to you as an expression of my sorrow that I have wronged you and my intention to do better."

Lieutenant Dax blinks at her, pure confusion, and says, clearly by rote, "I accept your offering with grace and humility," and then blinks down again at the token in her hand. "But, um, why? I mean, Kira's explained to me -- well to Jadzia -- well, kind of also to me the other day but -- anyway, that's an unnecessary distinction." She looks up at Ziyal again, smiling a rueful little smile. Her hand is moving, passing the coin from finger to finger; another trick Ziyal's seen in Vic's casino. Lieutenant Dax doesn't seem to realize that she's doing it. "I know that sometimes it's just a compulsory thing, like, you give one to everyone you know. But I didn't really think we knew each other? Oh, that was rude."

The lieutenant is so flustered by the end of this speech that Ziyal cannot help but be charmed. She finds suddenly that she doesn't want to disrupt her own good humor, or place any heavy weight on Lieutenant Dax's mind. She doesn't want to say _I'm sorry my father murdered you_ ; and if that's shirking her responsibility, well.

If anyone would understand feeling responsible for someone else's choices, it would be Lieutenant Dax, wouldn't it?

Ziyal summons up her bravery. "I -- spilled a drink on you at Quark's the other day, and I completely ruined your blouse."

"Oh, please, don't worry about it." The lieutenant laughs. "I'm so clumsy myself, my mother always used to say I needed a good accident to teach me better."

Ziyal frowns. "But that's a terrible thing to say."

"Oh, it is, it's not funny at all, I'm trying to use humor to cope with discomfort but I'm not much of a comedian either." Her hand closes around Ziyal's token, and she starts, like she's just remembered she's holding it. "I'm afraid I don't have anything to give you -- I made up a couple for Ben and whatnot -- but I gave them out already."

"Please, you've already given me more than I expected." A sudden impulse pushes her to ask: "Are you going to the fast breaking at the Emissary's?"

"Yes! Benjamin invited me. I understand there's going to be a lot of oration, but then again, I could listen to Benjamin talk for hours. Curzon always thought he could have become a very successful politician if he had a slightly tweaked moral compass. But then Curzon thought everyone should have a twisted moral compasses, I mean, he never did understand Benjamin's decision to have a monogamous marriage. And, wow, this is an inappropriate thing to be saying about my superior officer to a strange -- um. New acquaintance."

Ziyal laughs. "I'll see you tomorrow, then. Perhaps we'll get to know each other well enough that I won't surprise you so much when we see each other."

"That'd be nice!" Lieutenant Dax says, and raises a hand to wave at her, for all that Ziyal is only standing a few feet away.

Ziyal waves back as she leaves, and when she looks over her shoulder one last time from the end of the hall she sees Lieutenant Dax covering her face with her hand.


	2. Ezri Tigan's Birthday

It isn't Ziyal's idea, exactly, but she likes to think she was a part of a group effort.

They're in Vic's, for casino night. Nog is giving Jake a furious lecture about all of the ways that dabo is _different from_ and _superior too_ Earth roulette. Jake is grinning at Ziyal from behind his drink like that was exactly what he meant to happen.

Ziyal has a small pile of chips that she is betting very cautiously. Vic would give her more chips if she went bust, but it does undercut the point of gambling if there's no negative consequences. And given that she doesn't enjoy gambling in the first place, she really can't see any reason to play at all if she doesn't take it seriously.

Ezri slides up to the table and places a stack of chips on 18. The coupier spins the wheel as Ziyal glances over at her, curious. She knows Ezri just well enough to know that she prefers blackjack, on casino night, to the games of pure chance.

"It was getting a little crowded over there," Ezri says, and then takes a very large sip of her drink and coughs. They've gotten to a point in their acquaintance where Ezri doesn't get that flustered just from talking to Ziyal, so Ziyal has a pretty good idea of what she'll see when she looks over at the blackjack table.

Sure enough, Jadzia Idaris is frowning down at her cards.

The small _plink_ of the roulette ball bouncing into place draws her back to her surroundings, just as the croupier says, "thirty-five black," and one of the holo-patrons cheers.

Ezri sighs. "Oh, well, that's my luck then." 

Ziyal places half of her small stack of chips in front of Ezri. "Is everything all right?"

"Sure, just -- I talked to my mom earlier today. She wants me to come home. And she doesn't understand why I can't."

"She understands there's a war on, surely."

"Yes, but she thought I could have made more of an effort given that it's my birthday. That it was my birthday," Ezri corrects herself.

"Oh," Ziyal says. "When was your birthday?"

"Next week," Ezri says absent-mindedly. That doesn't make sense to Ziyal, and she wonders if that isn't one of the little moments of confusion that Ezri is prone to, wonders if it's kinder to point it out or ignore it.

Ezri finally notices her present of casino tokens. She picks up them up, lets them fall from her fingers one at a time back into a stack: _clunk-clunk-clunk_. "You should keep these. I'm going to head back to my quarters." She pulls up a smile for Ziyal, but it rings hollow, and then she's gone before Ziyal can return the smile.

Jake and Nog have moved on to the craps table, which Ziyal enjoys even less than roulette. She drifts across the room until she finds Garak, hovering over Dr. Bashir's shoulder and pestering him as he tries to count cards.

"Enjoying yourself, my dear?"

"As usual, I find the entertainment here a bit dull," Ziyal says. "But I cannot fault the company."

"Hm, a flatterer's answer," and of course from Garak that would be a compliment. "I for one find fault with the company -- specifically that of our good doctor."

"I _am_ trying to focus," Dr. Bashir says.

"Whatever for? The probabilities aren't so complicated that your super-computer of a brain can't run them."

"Baccarat is not just about math," Dr. Bashir says, "as you well know," and Ziyal wonders what it is about all of the men of her acquaintance, that they enjoy arguing about games so much.

He places his bet and then turns around -- not to Garak. "Good evening, Ziyal. Glad you could make it out."

"Well, casino night has become such an occasion, I would hate to miss it." She has a thought; Dr. Bashir is as close to Ezri as anyone. "I was hoping you could answer a question for me -- do you know when Lieutenant Dax's birthday was?"

Dr. Bashir frowns at her. "Not for months," he says.

"It sounded as thought it was quite recent. Apparently she had a call with her mother today."

"Oh, well, I don't know about the host's birthday," Dr. Bashir says, dismissively. "Joined Trills celebrate the day of their joining."

"Oh," Ziyal says. That strikes her as very sad, to put aside the traditions of an entire lifetime. But maybe a Trill wouldn't feel that way; maybe she is applying her own standards unfairly to someone else.

But from the look on Ezri's face at the roulette table, she can't help but think that Ezri finds it sad, too.

"Perhaps Lieutenant Dax would like to do something to commemorate the day, anyway."

Garak is looking at her very knowingly, which is terrifically unfair. There isn't anything _to_ know. There is, at most, something to suspect.

"Ah, doctor, Mr. Garak, Ziyal." Captain Sisko arrives at the table, Nerys in tow. As usual for a holosuite adventure, Nerys' costume is perfect in every single respect save for her attitude; she looks like she's one second away from ripping the skirt off her slinky Vegas gown. Captain Sisko, of course, is wearing his tux like he was born in it. "How's the house?"

"Dominating," Dr. Bashir groans, "I suspect foul play of the sort we'd find downstairs in Quark's."

Captain Sisko laughs.

Ziyal knows Captain Sisko to be a good man, and she trusts him without reservation; but the prospect of making conversation with him is still tied up in the reverence she has for the Emissary of the Prophets and the commander of the first line of defense against the Dominion.

But when he laughs like that, he's Ben Sisko, Nerys' friend, Jake's father, the man who invited her to watch an ancient Earth sport and explained every play until she could understand it well enough to enjoy it.

"Captain Sisko, perhaps you could help me," Ziyal says. "I was wondering if you knew when Lieutenant Dax's birthday is. She mentioned it's next week?"

"That sounds familiar. It would be in her record somewhere, I don't think she's mentioned it to me. Joined Trills don't usually celebrate their host's birthday. Although," he says, thoughtful. "I can see where, in this case, celebrating the day of the joining could be awkward." He doesn't look over at Jadzia Idaris, but Ziyal can still see her out of the corner of her eye, leaning against Commander Worf like she needs to borrow from his strength.

"We should do something," Captain Sisko says decisively. "When you have good people, you celebrate them."

So that's how the party comes to be. Ziyal wakes up the next morning to an invitation, swearing her to secrecy on the grounds that this is to be a surprise for Ezri.

It's a bit of a surprise for Ziyal, too. Perhaps Captain Sisko felt he had to invite her, since she was the one who gave him the idea. Or perhaps he knows that she and Ezri are becoming friends. She wouldn't say they're close, yet, but Ziyal thinks they're headed there. She collects memories of every smile she gets from Ezri, all the more precious when they are real joy and not self-deprecating fake humor. 

But she doesn't know Ezri well enough to know what to get her, until she remembers that blouse, months ago now, ruined in Quark's bar. She heads to Garak's shop and takes in the articles on display as he finishes taking measurements for an antsy Andorian.

She's running her fingers over cloth that flows like water when Garak approaches her.

"A lovely color, my dear, but that is not your size."

"No," Ziyal says. "I was thinking of it as a gift."

"Hm, a gift for a humanoid female of slender build and _exceptionally_ short stature."

Ziyal can feel her neck ridges bristling with embarrassment, but she makes eye contact with Garak anyway. "Yes, that's correct."

"I suppose this would be the kind of gift that says 'I'm available, if you ever get yourself figured out enough to tell whether you're interested as well'?"

"And I suppose you would know all about giving that sort of gift," Ziyal says, haughty and cruel, and then immediately flushes again. "Oh, Garak, forgive me, that was rude."

But Garak holds up a hand, blocking her apology, and he has a genuine spark of amusement in his eyes. "Never apologize for being rude to me, my dear. Your cutting comments are like a blast of hot desert wind, reminding me of home, and all the more precious because they are so rare."

"You're very silly," Ziyal tells him. "Can you make something like this in blue?"

"Certainly. And perhaps alter the neckline, to showcase spots?" He points at his neck, close to his own ridges and just where a Trill's spots would run down to their chest.

"At a certain point you're just showing off," Ziyal tells him.

Keeping the party a secret is a close thing, what with Morn and his big mouth, but they pull it off. The look on Ezri's face as she steps into Quark's bar and takes in all of her friends, waiting to celebrate her, is one that Ziyal is going to treasure for a long time. As is the smile she gets as she hands over her painstakingly wrapped gift.

Truly, the evening is full of smiles. Ziyal treasures every last one of them.


	3. Festival of Mourning

The temple is full, even though Ziyal went at an early in the morning, before most of the station is awake. She has to wait a time before she's able to light her candles, but she doesn't mind. She spends the time with her thoughts. It's easy to do; the temple is full, but no one is speaking. They are all spending time with their thoughts, as well.

The vedeks have stocked up the temple with unlit candles. Every Bajoran has too many souls to grieve for. Ziyal is no exception.

A candle for every soul who died in the Breen labor camp, Bajoran and Cardassian alike.

A candle for Tora Naprem, never to return to Bajor.

A candle of Skrain Dukat, gone mad in prison, consumed by hatred.

A candle for Corat Damar, who had once taught her engineering modifications with all of the patience of an officer to a new recruit, who had once shot her in the chest and tried to murder her.

Her throat is tight and her fingers sore from lighting matches by the time her work is done. She passes her matchbook to the vedek in attendance, not trying to hide the tears in her eyes, and then she turns to the back of the temple to find a place to sit.

Among the faces of the mourners is Ezri Dax.

Ziyal's surprise is short-lived. Why shouldn't she be here? She has the memories of someone who for all purposes died in this very temple. The life of Jadzia Dax had been snuffed out, broke into two different people, both still struggling to move on from the horror of death.

Ziyal makes her way across the temple and sits next to Ezri.

Ezri opens her eyes, comically wide, and her hand flutters up to cover her mouth. She starts to stand. Somehow, despite the fact that she isn't making a noise and she's blocking her mouth, Ziyal can tell that Ezri is apologizing.

Ziyal shakes her head. She reaches out and takes Ezri's hand, the one that is hanging by her side, and gives the fingers a very gentle squeeze.

Ezri remains standing for a heartbeat, two, and then she smiles -- rueful, but still luminous -- and she takes the seat next to Ziyal again.

They sit in silence, hand in hand, for a long time.


	4. Tora Ziyal's Birthday

Ezri Dax is freaking out.

That's hardly a new state of being for Ezri Dax, but it bears repeating.

There's something to be said, maybe, for the fact that the war is over, that at least now she isn't freaking out about hundreds of lives resting on whatever mission she's on this week, that she isn't freaking out about the fate of the entire Alpha Quadrant.

There's something to be said, maybe, for the fact that the stakes feel _exactly_ as high now as they did when she was freaking out about the fate of the entire Alpha Quadrant.

"It's just a birthday," Jake says. "Really. Not a big deal."

"I know! I know. Really, I know." Ezri takes an enormous bite of jambalaya and spends the next two minutes chewing, while Jake looks at her with barely concealed laughter. At least, whatever else comes from this, she got to bring a smile to Jake's face. She'd rather have made him laugh with her than at her, but nothing in life is perfect.

"Seriously, Ziyal is the most easy-going person ever," Jake says, while Ezri's still working on the jambalaya. "She's just going to be happy you got her anything at all. Why are you stressing?"

Ezri swallows, and takes another bite of her lunch, to get out of having to say, _well, Jake, the thing is she's graceful and strong without being hard and generous and beautiful and she deserves to be happy and also I think I would like to be the person, specifically, who makes her happy_.

"What are you getting her?" she says instead, hoping for inspiration.

Jake lights up, so that's two times today that Ezri has made Jake look like he isn't stumbling around with a hole in his heart where his father should be.

"I wrote her a short story," Jake says. "It's set on old Earth, the main character's parents come from two different cultures that don't get along. I think she'll like it."

It does sound like something Ziyal would like. It also isn't helpful to Ezri at _all_.

She tries asking Kira next, but as soon as she's mentioned Ziyal Kira's attention zeroes in on her. "What about Ziyal? Is she all right?" so not only does Ezri not get any gift ideas, she's now reminded herself that Kira is ferociously protective of her. Ezri did not need another thing to worry about.

Nog is getting Ziyal art supplies; Vic composed a new arrangement of "Skylark," since that's one of Ziyal's favorites. Rom and Leeta sent her a beautiful necklace, precious stones and copper setting that warms her skin. It arrived at the station last week and Quark would probably have pawned it and replaced it with a cheap fake if it had been for anyone except Ziyal. Quark wants Ziyal to be happy. Everyone wants Ziyal to be happy. Which is a good thing, except that Ezri does not have the latinum to compete with the Grand Nagus of Ferenginar.

So the bad news is, her friends on the station have no advice for her.

The _worse_ news is, her past lives _do_ have advice for her.

Tobin thinks she should get Ziyal a book of poetry and leave it somewhere she'll find it, with a single flower and a note with no name.

Curzon thinks she should show up at Ziyal's quarters late at night with a bottle of massage oil, in nothing but her lingerie.

Jadzia -- the echo of Jadzia Dax that exists only within Ezri -- thinks that she should take Ziyal on an exciting adventure, although she admits that the lingerie and massage oil plan has a certain straightforward quality.

And Ezri Tigan -- Ezri Tigan wouldn't have let it get this far. Ezri Tigan would have noticed the first tickles of attraction a lot faster than Ezri Dax had. She would have spent a few days flirting with Ziyal, establishing that she wasn't completely off base, and then would have said "I think you're interesting, do you want to go out sometime?"

"I used to be good at things," Ezri tells Quark that night.

"'Used to' doesn't press any latinum." Quark refills her drink.

Ezri squints at him. "That's not a rule of acquisition."

"What, am I only good for quoting the rules? I'm a man of the world, I know things. You should listen to me, I have wisdom."

"Hm. Wisdom. You're supposed to get smarter when you have more experience." Ezri rests her forehead on the bar and groans. "I couldn't even get that right."

"Who needs wisdom when you have alcohol?" Quark asks, and Ezri decides that yes, he's right about that. She needs wisdom, needs a lot of wisdom, but she'll settle for a lot of alcohol.

Julian and Miles end up walking her home from Quark's. She wakes up the next morning to a hazy memory of babbling at Julian about how she and him would never have worked out, really, and anyway she wouldn't want to step on anyone's toes, since there was a claim on Julian that went back a lot longer than Ezri's, while Julian looked alternatively horrified and confused and Miles laughed so hard he had to lean on the wall to hold himself up.

She also wakes up to discover that she'd spent the entire night replicating possible gifts. There's the lingerie and the massage oil, as well as a book by Ezri Tigan's favorite poet, a stuffed sehlat, a Trill lap harp, and a recreation of the famous Vulcan painting _Hill at Sunrise._

She spends most of the day nursing her hangover, cleaning up the mess she'd made the night before, and ducking Julian as she runs errands on the Promenade.

As she's getting ready to go to Ziyal's quarters for the party, she grabs the book of poetry.

 _Hmph,_ Curzon grumps at her, _the coward's way out._

"Well, at least I'll give it to her myself, okay?" Ezri says.

The party's already started when she gets there; she can hear music through the door, and the low murmur of conversation. She pulls herself up straight and tugs at the hem of her blouse, the beautiful blue one that Ziyal had bought her.

She chimes the door.

Ziyal opens it a moment later, like she's been waiting the whole night for Ezri.

And maybe that's wishful thinking.

But Ziyal looks so happy to see her that Ezri can't quite count it out.


	5. The Earth Festival Known As "Christmas"

"Remind me again why we're stressing out so hard about gifts when this isn't even our holiday," Ezri says.

Ziyal stops just long enough to drop a kiss on the top of her head, before continuing across the room to remove her sweet rolls from the oven.

"We're celebrating because we love our friends and we enjoy their company," Ziyal says. "And you're stressing because you are, unfortunately, prone to stress."

"It takes all of the fun out of stressing when you're calm and reasonable about it." Ezri bites her lip and looks down at the mess in front of her. She'd left the oddly shaped presents for Ziyal to wrap, but she'd through that she could handle wrapping a _book_ , at least. It's a rectangle. It's all flat edges.

It's managed to poke its corners through the paper in three places.

"Do you really think that stressing is fun?" Ziyal asks her, all earnest curiosity and desire to help.

"Not really." Ezri rips the wrapping paper off of the book. Maybe she can just hand it to Ben. The real surprise is the inscription on the inside from Kai Taluno, anyway.

"Because I do sometimes find it adorable when you overthink trivial matters," Ziyal tells her, carefully transferring to the rolls to a cooling rack. "But I didn't think it made you very happy."

"Adorable?"

Ziyal looked up from the baking to give her one of those heart-meltingly warm smiles she has, like all of the goodness inside of her is beaming out, just for Ezri.

"What did you call it," she says, impish, "when you spent three months panicking about asking me to move in with you?"

"Nerve-wracking!" Ezri says, though she has to admit that it had worked out well in the end, and for the months since then. "Next year, if Jake asks us to come to his holiday party, we're saying no."

"You said that last year," Ziyal reminds her. "And then you went to the party, and you had a lovely time, and Jake bragged for six months about the antique typewriter you'd found for him."

"Hm." Ziyal has a point; Ziyal often has a point. "Replicator, one gift bag," she says, and places Ben's book inside of it.

Maybe she is worrying about nothing, but at least she has Ziyal to remind her, and help her through, and smile at her like she knows that everything will be all right.

"There. That's all the presents, isn't it? Am I forgetting anything?"

"Just one," Ziyal says.

Ezri blinks. She _really_ thought she'd gotten everyone covered. Jake, Ben, Kasidy, Rebecca -- 

Ziyal places a tiny box in front of Ezri. "Merry Christmas."

"Oh no!" Ezri blurts out. "You didn't!"

"I couldn't help myself." She lowers her eyes, and the scales under her eyes are tinging pink, like she actually thinks she's done something wrong. "You know I like to make you happy."

"No -- I love you, I mean I love it, I mean I don't know what it is but I love that you got me something, but -- " Ezri's hands flutter and fall into her lap. "Your gift is at Ben's, he's been hiding it there for me for weeks!"

Ziyal raises her head back up to meet Ezri's eyes, and then she laughs, a small beautiful noise like all of the static in Ezri's brain falling away.

"Well, then," she says, bending in half to kiss Ezri, and it's an even more ridiculous height difference when Ezri is sitting down. "Let's go to the party."

**Author's Note:**

> I have previously played with the idea of a "Jadzia lives but Ezri becomes Dax anyway" AU; credit then as now to cosmic_llin's [Shadow](http://archiveofourown.org/works/134780).
> 
> If you like this fic you can [reblog it on tumblr!](http://toast-the-unknowing.tumblr.com/post/169163331605/where-my-heart-can-go-a-journeying-chapter-1)


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